Former New Brunswick official gets 9 more years in prison for hit-man plot

NEW BRUNSWICK -- A former New Brunswick city official already serving time on bribery charges was sentenced today to an additional nine years in prison for trying to hire a hit man from behind bars to kill his estranged wife.

Richard Kaplan, 58, pleaded guilty in 2008 to using the mail in the commission of a murder-for-hire. One year earlier, he pleaded guilty before the same judge to taking more than $30,000 in bribes while he was a city construction inspector and zoning officer.

After he began serving a 30-month term on the bribery charges at a federal prison in Cumberland County, Kaplan told a fellow inmate his wife had been arguing with him over money and "conspiring" against him with her family.

He claimed to be willing to pay $25,000 to have her killed and asked the inmate to find a hit man, according to a criminal complaint. Instead, the inmate went to prosecutors. The hit man Kaplan began dealing with was actually an undercover FBI agent.

U.S. District Judge Joseph E. Irenas ordered Kaplan to begin serving the nine-year sentence after he completes his 30-month stint.